Talk:Ghostbusters
Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling and The Ghost Busters connection I read the comic, and characters from these two series are briefly shown among alternate Ghostbusters dimensions. As always I was trying to figure out if they're licensed, and I couldn't find any notice on the comic itself. Now, Hulk Hogan's show is by DIC and Columbia, just like Ghostbusters, so even if this doesn't necessairly mean that IDW has the comic rights for its characters, it's easier to accept... The Ghost Busters are by Filmation and NBC though, completely different companies. Now, the author of the comic in an interview listed alternate Ghostbuster worlds that were "either not allowed or there was no room for", implying that all universes they featured are indeed "allowed"... BUT in the Trade Paperback reprint of the comic they actually excluded these two universes and replaced them with alternate Ghostbusters from the TV show! So the situation is unclear... it seems to lean more towards it not being official, but it may just be that they did get authorization only for the first print... also the Hulk Hogan universe might have been excluded because of the characters featuring real wrestlers' likenesses rather than the characters not being allowed per se. I'm willing to keep it as type 1 with an official "arguable link" tag.--Kombatgod (talk) 16:52, February 15, 2019 (UTC) Tokyo ESP Ok so I checked this one too. Episode 3 of Tokyo ESP features spoofs of the Ghostbusters as penguin-catchers. Now, not only there's no reason to believe this was officially authorized, but even if it was I don't think these count as incarnations of the Ghostbusters, because well they're not ghostbusters. Also in the credits I think they're listed as "Mystery Research Institute Members" or something like that. Now, these penguin catchers made a cameo among the alternate universe Ghostbusters I mentioned in the previous topic. So does this count as a retroactive authorization? Arguable, but acknowledgement of unauthorized works is one of the cases I mentioned in the arguable link page (the last one), so maybe yes. Only problem is: in my opinion the Tokyo ESP characters were never meant to BE the Ghostbusters, only spoofs. It would be the same if in a Superman comic among the alternate universe version of the hero they also showed Suppaman from Dr.Slump, nobody would say "Oh it was really Superman all along!" So it's basically Ghostbusters acknowledging original Tokyo ESP characters that are only based on the GB, meaning that, ignoring the need of authorization, this would only be a type 1 link toward Ghostbusters. So the follow up question: was the appearance of the penguin-catchers in the comic authorized? Well, not explicitly, no. But was an authorization really needed? While "original" characters, they exist entirely as spoofs of the Ghostbusters, they didn't receive any exclusive character trait, they can't really be considered Tokyo ESP characters, even if they debuted in that anime. (unlike the Suppaman example I mentioned, since Suppaman does have exclusive traits, and a distinct personality) Basically, while created by the Tokyo ESP authors, the penguin catchers can be considered property of the Ghostbusters' owners. So bottom line, I do settle on considering the characters in Tokyo ESP only spoofs (type 3 link), which then really appeared in Ghostbusters (type 1 link), obviously with a very huge "arguable link" tag.--Kombatgod (talk) 20:06, May 16, 2019 (UTC)